
Unfortunately, due to irresponsible pet owners not spaying or neutering their cats or the fact that they don't have proper
cat insurance or the money to get this procedure done, there has been a surge in the feral cat population. Many of these cats end up getting euthanized at the pound, while others get adopted out as pets. My very first cat, (Felix), was an example of the latter.
He was one of dozens of feral cats in my grandmother’s neighborhood. He came to know Grandma after she would put out food for the neighborhood cats. A friendship blossomed and Grandma decided to take him in. Over time, we fell in love with the cat too, so Grandma decided she would give him to us as a birthday gift.
Now, in terms of love, Felix was no different than any other house cat. He would rub up against our legs when he wanted to be held and he would get depressed if we were gone for a long period of time. There was even a time when he gave my mom a dead bird, an act that shows love and respect in the feline world, (even though it’s very strange to humans).
Yet, despite his intense love he couldn’t escape his feral roots. He was an alley cat down to the bone. If he wasn’t trying to kill mice, he was begging to go outside. He would purr and violently scratch on the door if we didn’t let him go. So, eventually we had to cave in.
For days at a time, Felix would roam around embarking on all kinds of feline adventures. We don’t exactly know what he did, but it was funny how he returned home with ‘girlfriends’, anxious to share his food with him. He was almost living the movie Lady and the Tramp, except he was a cat and well, this was real life. And, in real life not every story has a happy ending.
This is what happened with Felix, as he eventually got hit by a car, well infact a caravan. My parents had noticed it as we had left our neighborhood. They told my brother and I to close our eyes because they thought it was too traumatic for us to watch. I peeked anyway, and did see a dead cat– but I refused to believe it was Felix. I know that the drivers ran over and offered to make some kind of recompence, when my parrents refused they even tried to explain that they didn't mind and that their
caravan insurance would cover the costs. They weren't pet owners, they didn't understand that it had nothing to do with the money.
Well, days turned into months and months turned into years. And to this day, Felix has never returned to that house. So, my parents were probably right– poor Felix lost his life in a car accident.
With that being said, what’s the main lesson pet owners should learn from this story? Basically, you need to be careful if you take a feral cat in as a pet. And, I’m not necessarily talking about pets who are in the pound, because not all of them started off feral. I’m talking about cats like Felix, who lived their whole lives as alley cats. With them, the desire to be free overrides any love they might have for you. So, unless you can afford specialized training, or have another setup where they can safely roam around, you may want to start off with a kitten or a grown cat who has lived a sheltered life all along.